Missing in Death

Epilogue

Roarke found her in her office, pacing like a caged cat. "Eve."

"I don't want any damn coffee. I want a damn drink."

"I'll get us both one." He touched the wall panel and chose a bottle of wine from inside. "He was telling the truth. I got deep enough to find considerable data on him, on his work prior to Homeland, on the decision to kill his family and plant evidence that led to his own organization."

He drew the disc from his pocket. "I made you a copy." He handed her the wine, set the disc on her desk. "And he was telling the truth when he said they, or others like them, would come for him. He would have self-terminated before he worked for anyone like them again."

"I know that. I saw that."

"I know a decision like this is difficult for you. Painfully. Just as you know I stand across the line so it wouldn't be difficult for me. I'm sorry."

"It shouldn't be for me to decide. It's not my place, it's not my job. It's why there's a system, and mostly the system works."

"This isn't your system, Eve. These things have their own laws, their own system, and too many of those pockets inside them don't quibble about letting a child be tortured, don't lose sleep over ordering the death of a child to reach the goal of the moment."

She took a long sip. "I can justify it. I can justify what I just did because I know that's true. It's not my system. I can justify it by knowing if Buckley had gotten the upper hand yesterday, Carolee Grogan would be dead, and that kid waiting for his mother outside the door would be blown to pieces along with dozens of others. I can justify it knowing if I arrested him, I would be killing him."

She picked up the disc from her desk, and remembering what he'd once done for her, snapped it in two. "Don't let him come here again."

He shook his head, then framed her face and kissed her. "It takes more than skill and duty to make a good cop, to my way of thinking. It takes an unfailing sense of right and wrong."

"It's a hell of a lot easier when they don't overlap. I have to get my report together and contact the commander. And for God's sake, get that boomer out of the house. I don't care if it is diffused."

"I'll take care of it."

Alone, she sat down to organize her notes into a cohesive report. She glanced over when the cat padded in, with Summerset behind him.

"Working," she said briefly, then frowned when he set a plate with an enormous chocolate chip cookie on her desk. "What's this?"

"A cookie, as any fool could see. It'll spoil your dinner, but . . ." He shrugged, started out. He paused at the door without turning around. "He was a hero at a time when the world desperately needed them. He would be dead before the night was over if you'd taken him in. I want you to know that. To know you saved a life today."

She sat back, staring at the empty doorway, when he'd left her. Then she scanned her notes, the report on screen, the photographs of the dead. They were the lost, weren't they? All those lives taken. Maybe, in a way that nudged up against that line between right and wrong, she was standing for the lost.

She had to hope so.

Breaking off a hunk of cookie, she got back to work.